Cartridges for use with beverage making machines are well known, and can include one or more filters as well as a beverage medium, such as ground coffee beans, tea leaves, etc. In some cartridges, the filter is located between two or more portions of an interior space (e.g., one portion in which a beverage medium is located and a second portion into which liquid that has passed through the permeable filter can flow). Examples of such cartridges are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,840,189 and 6,607,762. Those cartridges can be used with a beverage making machine like that described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,398,726. The disclosures of U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,840,189; 6,607,762; and 7,398,726 are hereby incorporated by reference in their respective entireties. In use, the beverage making machine introduces a pressurized fluid into a cartridge to interact with a beverage medium. In some machines, a piercing outlet needle of the machine is used to pierce a surface of the cartridge (e.g., a bottom wall of the cartridge container or the cartridge lid) permitting the pressurized liquid that has interacted with the beverage medium to flow through the filter and exit the cartridge.
Some cartridges are configured to contain one or more dry beverage mediums. These cartridges incorporate a permeable filter and as such are incapable of containing ingredients that are suitable to create a beverage that requires both a dry beverage medium and a liquid beverage medium.
Other cartridges are limited in that they are configured to contain two or more dry and/or liquid beverage mediums by incorporating a barrier, such as a fluid permeable valve or a frangible joint, between portions of the cartridge. Because the valve is fluid permeable, only dry beverage mediums may be stored within portions of the cartridge containing the valve, as fluids would permeate the valve and quickly spoil a beverage medium of an adjacent portion of the pod. While frangible joints may permit fluids to be stored in separate, adjacent portions of the cartridge, the frangible joints are fragile and easily broken.
Accordingly it is desirable to provide a cartridge that contains dry and/or fluid substances in separate chambers and selectively mixes the substances when ready for use.